For years, fans of tactical shooters have been crying out for someone to make a quality, hardcore, tactical shooter. But in contrast to these requests, game publishers eschew realism and tactics in exchange for ease of use and “cinematic” flavor. This campaign aims to see if my theory that real tactical shooters aren’t dead, and that enough people want one to justify the cost of development.

I’ve been in the video game industry working on best in class shooters for ten years now – designing and leading teams creating Tom Clancy games and Halo Reach. Now I’ve struck out and formed a new company for indie game development, Serellan LLC.

You don't really need experience working on tactical shooters to make a tactical shooter. It's not like there are technological challenges that are unique to that genre. If he's played tactical shooters, knows what makes a game a tactical shooter, and is aiming to make such a game, that will be sufficient.

It's not quite that simple. There's a big difference between playing a game and making a game. When you make a game, you have to make decisions about things that you never really think about while playing games. When you make a game, you lose perspective on the decisions you've made and how they affect the game as a whole. Ideas that sound great in theory may end up being not so great in practice, but if you're heavily invested in those ideas, you won't realize that there's a problem until someone tells you.

Think of it like this: if being a fan of a particular genre was enough to become a great designer within that genre, then wouldn't Derek Smart be one of the best space sim designers ever?

Schafer get's a boatload of cash because the games he makes have very broad appeal.

That's not really accurate. Shooters are far more popular than adventure games and Schafer's last high-profile games (Brutal Legend and Psychonauts) sold poorly. The reason why his Kickstarter was a success was because of his reputation. He's been involved with many cult classics; Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. These games all had small but devout fanbases and their faith in Schafer is what made his Kickstarter successful. The same can't be said for the guy who made this tactical shooter Kickstarter. What reputation does he have? He worked on the console version of an expansion pack for one tactical shooter. That's it. Just because he's a fan of the genre doesn't mean he can make a good game in that genre. I have no reason whatsoever to have any faith in his ability until he actually proves it and his credentials certainly don't prove it.